First Night Review: The Harder They Come

Never mind the plot, just revel in the reggae standards and the shattering vocal performances.

Perry Henzell’s lively, beautifully sung and danced musical, previously admired at Stratford East and the Barbican, is loosely based on his 1972 feature film about a would-be Jamaican singer who becomes a gangster, then a folk hero, then a bullet-riddled corpse.

You could draw a direct line from the options open to Jimmy Cliff ’s Ivan Martin in the film to the world of So Solid Crew and 50 Cent today, but on stage the plot is a mere framing device for the killer soundtrack.

Enthralling: the cast throngs around the on-stage band like punters at a Kingston dance hall in Kerry Michael and Dawn Reid¿s inventive but tripped-back staging. Songs are delivered with verve, brio and astonishing virtuosity

The show is none the worse for this, but Ivan points fingers, rather than pistols, at us from the poster now.

In the inventive staging of directors Kerry Michael and Dawn Reid, the cast throngs around the band on the strippedback stage like punters at a Kingston dancehall stepping forward as required.

Even the temperature felt right last night as Sir Mick Jagger and his teenage daughter Georgia joined the first night audience and danced along to the performance.

If the acting is arch, with half-rhyming lines tossed off with a wink at the audience, the singing is anything but. Each song is delivered with verve, brio and in many casesastonishing virtuosity, while the dance routines escalate from sedate struttinginto hectic frenzy.

And, to be honest, there is arguably enough emotional information in Cliff classics such as You Can Get It If You Really Want and Many Rivers To Cross to negate the need for a plot all together.

The corrupt and thwarting collusion of Jamaica’s politicians, police, drug dealers and record producers is similarly underscored by Desmond Dekker’s Shanty Town and The Maytals’ Pressure Drop, while the only alternative offered to Ivan — Christianity and poverty — is made to look briefly alluring via an uplifting version of Higher And Higher.

This last number benefits immensely from the extraordinary vocals of Joanna Francis, who plays Elsa, the preacher’s ward who catches Ivan’s eye, and who has a gospel-tinged voice that could blow a church down.

Rolan Bell, once again reprising the role of Ivan, has a clear, bell-like voice and wonderfully snaky thighs, even if he boomerangs too easily between sorrow and swagger when not singing.

Despite indifferent acting, when the whole cast and the tight band pull together, it’s enthralling.

How nice to have an all-black and almost-contemporary musical in the West End at last, even if it has more confidence in its back catalogue than its narrative convictions.●Box office: 0870 060 6631.